The Navy as a Fighting Machine eBook

Attention is respectfully invited to the fact that
at the present time naval strategy is mainly an art;
that it will probably continue so for many years;
that whether a science of naval strategy will ever
be formulated need not now concern us deeply, and that
the art of naval strategy, like every other art, needs
practice for its successful use. Naval strategy
is so vague a term that most of us have got to looking
on it as some mystic art, requiring a peculiar and
unusual quality of mind to master; but there are many
things to indicate that a high degree of skill in it
can be attained by the same means as can a high degree
of skill in playing—­say golf: by hard
work; and not only by hard work, but by doing the
same thing—­or similar things—­repeatedly.
Now most of us realize that any largely manual art,
such as the technic of the piano, needs frequent repetition
of muscular actions, in order to train the muscles;
but few of us realize how fully this is true of mental
arts, such as working arithmetical or strategical problems,
though we know how easy it is to “get rusty”
in navigation. Our mental muscles and whatever
nerves co-ordinate them with our minds seem to need
fully as much practice for their skilful use as do
our physical muscles; and so to attain skill in strategy,
we must practise at it. This means that all hands
must practise at it—­not only the staff
in their secret sanctuary, not only the commander-in-chief,
not only the division commanders, but, in their respective
parts, the captains, the lieutenants, the ensigns,
the warrant officers, the petty officers, and the
youngest recruits. To get this practice, the
department, through the staff, must furnish the ideas,
and the commander-in-chief the tools. Then, day
after day, month after month, and year after year,
in port and at sea, by night and by day, the ideas
assisted by the tools will be supplying a continuous
stimulus to the minds of all. This stimulus, properly
directed through the appropriate channels and devoted
to wise purposes, will reach the mess attendant, the
coal-passer, and the recruit, as well as those in
positions more responsible (though not more honorable);
and as the harmony of operation of the whole increases,
as skill in each task increases, and as a perception
of the strategic why for the performance of
each task increases, the knowledge will be borne in
on all that in useful occupation is to be found the
truest happiness; that only uninterested work at any
task is drudgery; that interest in work brings skill,
that skill brings pleasure in exerting it; and that
the greater the number of men engaged together, and
the more wise the system under which they work, the
greater will be the happiness of each man, and the
higher the efficiency of the whole.

CHAPTER X

RESERVES AND SHORE STATIONS

In the preceding chapter it was pointed out that the
work of preparing the naval machine for use could
be divided into two parts: preparing the existing
fleet and preparing the rest of the navy.